Confirmed: First-born siblings are more conservative

posted at 4:41 pm on May 13, 2014 by Allahpundit

Knowing this, plus the fact that men with sisters also tend to be more conservative, makes me think Obama’s younger sister must be a full-on communist.

Fun fact: Jeb Bush is seven years younger than George W. Bush, the guy who signed TARP, increased the deficit, and tried to pass a massive immigration reform bill. Gulp.

“We suggest that differences in conservatism between firstborns and second-borns stem from different strategies of optimizing the parental resources children can gain in the family system,” study researcher Daniela Barni, a psychologist at the Catholic University of Milan in Italy, told Live Science…

In 1997, psychologist Frank Sulloway expanded on the theory in his book, “Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives” (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1997). Sulloway suggested that firstborns are used to being dominant and prefer to uphold the status quo, while second-borns, looking for a unique niche to fill in their families, take a path of rebellion. Firstborns also stick to a conservative path in order to align themselves with their parents, Sulloway argued…

The results of this analysis partly supported Sulloway’s theories. Firstborn children were, indeed, more conservative on average. However, they were not more likely to be influenced by their parents’ levels of conservatism than their younger siblings, suggesting that older kids aren’t taking on a conservative personality in order to throw in their lot with Mom and Dad…

“Firstborns, having experienced the undivided attention and care of their parents, and being stronger and more intellectually developed than their younger siblings, occupy a dominant position,” she said. “Thus, they tend to safeguard their status advantage by developing conservative values helping them to uphold the status quo.”

Sulloway’s research also showed that first-born (i.e. more conservative) siblings tended to have higher IQs. Which means you’re now fully armed to approach your liberal friends and inform them that not only is their “enlightenment” merely an artifact of being whiny and deprived of attention in childhood, they’re also objectively dumber. They’ve got brains a third the size of ours. It’s science.

To illustrate the point, here’s Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia, who I’m guessing is a third- or maybe even fourth-born sibling. Exit question: Show of hands, commenters — how many of you growing up saw the “first-born conservative” phenomenon in your own homes? *Raises hand*

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And that’s Jeb Bush’s problem. He’s antagonized the base on hot-button issues such as immigration and the Common Core curriculum, without trying to persuade anyone he’s conservative enough. He even presented Clinton with an award on the eve of the first anniversary of the Benghazi attack.

I’m the oldest of six, four boys and two girls. I am conservative/libertarian. My brothers are conservative, while my sisters are lefties, although the younger of the two is getting more centrist as she gets older. The third brother is the most conservative of the four of us.

I’m the youngest in my family, and by far the most Conservative. My two oldest Brother (Early 50′s) at *best* are classic Democrats; My sister (50) (Ivy League Masters) is Progressive Lite, but still open to debate and mind changes…(gave her copies of Thomas Sowell, Ben Carson & Allan West books for her birthday and I know she’ll read them. My OTHER brother (late 40′s) is a NPR Libertarian (sigh)…and my Mom is 100% neutral, as she hasn’t voted at all in decades.

I campaigned for Reagan during the 80′s and would consider myself in the Reagan Conservative/Tea Party with a dash of Libertarian leanings. But as stated before, the Libertarian Party itself has a lot more maturing to do, especially since the Paul-bots and their minions have been on the scene.

Knowing this, plus the fact that men with sisters also tend to be more conservative, makes me think Obama’s younger sister must be a full-on communist.

Obama has a younger sister? He sure doesn’t hang out with his relatives, even the ones here legally or the half-ones who set up bogus charities.

All we ever hear about Obama’s family is the stories in his two books about composite characters and stories of his racist grandmother. Yet, outside the Yeti and the brats the only kin we see around Obama is that vile crude creature that birthed the Yeti and nearly got the royal entourage kicked out of that hotel in China.

I’ve got a twin, Grouchy Nomad. He’s become more conservative over time. I’m more of the social conservative. Our two younger brothers- Obama supporting liberals in every sense of the word. It’s gotten to the point where we cannot even talk about much of anything at family gatherings.

Definitely true in our family. As an example, when we watched Tom and Jerry, the oldest brother was rooting for Tom and the younger 3 brothers always rooted for Jerry. So the first born status probably causes both an authoritarian and conservative bent to the personality.

Doesn’t apply in my family. I’m the middle of three. My sister is 10 years older (mid-50s) and a totally loony-tune liberal. My younger brother and I are only 15 months apart, and we’re both conservative, although my bro is more fiscal con/social moderate, while I’m a born-again church girl and more conservative in general. Our father(s) weren’t around, and our mom was as old-school conservative as they come.

One funny thing about my sister, though. Flaming liberal that she is, she’s a gun owner and swears no one will ever take her guns from her! We try to tell her how incongruent that is, but she won’t hear it. She really believes her patron saint Obama would never grab her guns.

I would suggest that the early death of your father makes you an outlier in the theory. Particularly those of us old enough to remember what a traditional family looks like with a mother and a father that can’t use the same public restroom.

My mom had a similar upbringing to yours. She was young enough when her father died that she has no memories of him. My grandmother raised her and my uncle as a widowed teacher.

My mom is conservative but my Uncle (who was ten years older) turned into a very bitter individual who lost all faith. I don’t know what his politics were but they were decidedly not conservative. All in all he was a very unpleasant person. Only very late in life did he say something that put it all in perspective. When his dad died, he kept being told that he was the man of the house now. That’s a lot of pressure to put on an 11-year-old.

Perhaps your older brothers were fundamentally effected by the death/absence of a male role model in their lives.

One funny thing about my sister, though. Flaming liberal that she is, she’s a gun owner and swears no one will ever take her guns from her! We try to tell her how incongruent that is, but she won’t hear it. She really believes her patron saint Obama would never grab her guns.

KKinFLA on May 13, 2014 at 5:22 PM

Sounds like your sister is just old enough to have been influenced by the end of the hippie movement while you were more influenced by the Reagan era.

I don’t know what to make of her support of the Second Amendment other than to say that the left needs more people of her ilk.

Studies show more anxious parenting devoted into firstborn, by the second child parents themselves grow up take a breather and relax. The bottle first heated to perfect body temperature is now tossed in the general direction of the crib. Cries of babies unattended, “he’ll quiet down on his own.” Studies show second born and the rest less inclined to follow parental advice and direction. Further, studies show parents pride themselves in believing they raise their children the same. The studies I mentioned were made in my mind, by observation as second of five and by seeing the pattern repeated. And if you disagree then you …. never mind.

Sulloway’s research also showed that first-born (i.e. more conservative) siblings tended to have higher IQs.

This type of study is utter bull puckey, and has no, nada, relationship to conclusivity. All it shows is a non-causal relationship at best. Lay people take studies like this without the grain of salt they are meant to carry with them.

Long story short, I am quite conservative and my older brother is quite loony liberal. Also, my older brother tested in the average high (100-120) range on the IQ test we took in grammar school. I scored much higher in the 140-150 range. Same held true for my two daughters. Although they are both loony liberals, the older one scored in the 120-130 IQ range, while the younger one scored very high in the 150-160 range. My loony liberal ex-wife is the reason for their liberal insanity. But that’s what happens when you marry too young.

Although last in line, there are enough years between me and the middle that I’m more or less a re-start. The eldest is somewhat conservative, but she is still living in the People’s Republic of New York and I bugged out of there as fast as I could get a job somewhere else outside of the various People’s Republics.

I have this feeling I’ll have to do that again pretty soon for the same reason.

As for the rule of thumb on first born children: YMMV. Remember they are the kids that have to break in their parents.

I was typing and the whole thing disappeared. I had to log back on. I think studies like these are an easy way for someone to do a paper for college. I’m the oldest and most conserative although I frankly don’t know what my brother is now that Obungle has shown his true colors to everyone. I haven’t seen him supporting the White House gang on Facebook lately. I don’t know what my little brother was or what he would be now if he had lived beyond 35. I don’t argue politics with family. All that does is alienate people to no purpose since they rarely change their minds. I did send my idiot brother an email once. I said, “You are a white, male, small business owner. They don’t like you”. I didn’t hear back on it.

My parents came from another time. My mother just voted Dem because that’s what they did in her family. My father wasn’t interested in politics at all. I never heard him talk about it.

So if you abort your firstborn, does the next child become your “firstborn” or stay as the second born? I look forward to some high minded liberal think pieces on this, as purely hypotheticals of course.

That…and that he was kept more of his life than anyone. That includes those that he “dated” that took care of him even after he left home.

CW on May 13, 2014 at 6:03 PM

Sounds just like my youngest brother. He’s very charming. He’s had inexplicable breaks based on that fact. He never graduated college but his social media resume says that he has a degree. IMO, at some point all these lies will catch up with him.

Youngest of two here. Older sister presently lives in Seattle near the U of W, is an artist and writer, studies philosophers, loooooves anything European and wants to live in England. Myself: ardent Reaganite, support of all things Palin and Cruz, love the USA and want to keep living in Western Washington state so I can annoy the heck out of liberals. I think it’s pretty clear who’s more conservative in our family.

I am the oldest of 2. We’re both conservative. Dh is the youngest of 6 (5 that lived to adulthood). Oldest is conservative. Number 2 could have been a conservative (she goes to an evangelical church), but she’s a teacher, and I think hanging out with a bunch of leftists just left her confused. Next one is very conservative, and #4 is more apolitical. And then there’s dh, who is very conservative. However, he didn’t start off that way — he was more centrist when we married, and I’ve been pulling him to the right ever since.

I’m the oldest of four boys. You’d have a hard time discerning who was more conservative between the three older ones. The youngest is probably going to be the same, but he’s still in high school. My dad is a solid conservative. My mom votes republican.

My moms side of the family (7 sibs) is a bunch of flaming liberals with the exception of an uncle that my dad helped raise.

My dad’s side (5 sibs) is conservative. 3 (including dad) are solid conservatives. The youngest is also, but I’ve kind of lost contact with her. The most liberal of them is the second, but he’s more of a Ron Paul libertarian lately.

I’m an only child … 56 and very conservative now, didn’t pay much of any attention to politics when I was a teen. My dad died when I was only 2, but from what my mom always told me about him, he was a very devout Catholic and seemed to be on the conservative side, although I didn’t know his political views. My mom was equally devout and very conservative, as was her family and two out of three of my male cousins.

Met my hubby when we were both 16, and although we weren’t married until about 10 years later, he’s been a conservative all his life. He’s the second-oldest, and has been very politically astute since he was a kid, even having a bumper sticker that said “Nixon now, more than ever” when he was 12. His dad was a flaming liberal and would vote for anyone with a “D” next to his or her name, no matter what. While he was alive, my father-in-law and my hubby would get into some heated arguments, and there was basically nothing you could say to my FIL that would cause him to even consider another viewpoint, facts be damned.

My hubby’s older brother is somewhat conservative, but that’s where it stops. His only sister is very liberal and his youngest brother, when he pays attention, has been heard to utter a couple conservative opinions here and there, but is in general apolitical.

This concept played out exactly like the research in my house. Both of my parents are old school Democrats. I have two younger sisters. My oldest sister leaned conservative for many years up until about 2004 when she apparently fell victim to BDS or something. Since then, she has leaned ever more left. My youngest sister has always been the so-called “rebel” of the three of us. She is ultra-liberal and was a spoiled brat growing up. That is something else I think deserves to be researched. The link between spoiled brat and liberal ideology.

I came from a default Dem home with an older brother who started out pretty conservative and I was much more liberal. But as we got older, while I saw the conservative light, he, while retaining his personal conservative lifestyle, became more and more politically liberal, I’m now talking Elizabeth Warren worshiping. He’s smart and successful (way more than me), but politically he’s a lost cause.